Sausage & Fennel Pizza
I made homemade pizza before lockdown (why do I feel like that could be a t-shirt slogan?!) but it was the deep pan kind which has it's own deliciousness and reminds me of the homemade pizza my mum would make at home but it was more recently that I decided to try and make the crispy flat kind that you get at an Italian restaurant or on holiday. I never bothered before because our local Italian do great pizzas and making dough is pretty time consuming but now we all have some extra time on our hands it seemed worth giving it a try. The base is a Gennaro Contaldo recipe and you can find it on YouTube here - if you can't be bothered to watch it, I'll summarise it here for you. You will need:
- 500g Strong white bread flour
- A sachet or around 7g dried active yeast
- Semolina
- 320ml tepid water
- Salt
Start by mixing the flour with about 5g of salt. Then add the yeast to the water and stir. Allow it a few minutes and then add the water to the dough. If you are using a stand mixer ( I do) put it on the lowest setting and allow it to incorporate. Then turn it up a little and knead it for a good 10 minutes. When it has come to together and kneaded, cut it up into four or two portions depending on the size of pizza you are making. 4 makes pizzas that are about 20cms. Cover a tray with some semolina, get your dough into balls and place on the tray and cover with a little more semolina and a damp tea towel. Let it prove for about two hours or until doubled in size.When this has happened it's really up to you how you go about making your pizzas. I mean this is a recipe for Sausage & Fennel but at this point you can really put what you want on them. A couple of tips first for rolling your pizza dough out. Don't try and do it like the movies, it won't work unless you know what you're doing. Roll your dough out on a lightly floured surface (you can use semolina) - use a rolling pin to get it to flatten out and loosen up a bit. Then depending what tray you are using (I don't have a pizza tray, I've used all sorts, from a cookie sheet to a loose bottomed cake tin and flan tin, both of which work really well). Spray or grease whatever tray you are using. I don't attempt anything like this without my PME cake release spray. then get your dough in and move it with your hands to fill out the tin. You want to leave a little more dough on the edges to form a crust while thinner in the middle. These come our really nice and crispy and thin. If you make a hole in your dough, then pinch a little dough from the sides and cover up.Now the base. You can make your own sauce. Use great quality fresh or tinned tomatoes, a little oregano, a little garlic and you've got yourself a pizza sauce. I however use Mutti Pizza Sauce. It's great and makes the whole thing a little less of a faff. Pre-heat your oven to 220. Spread some sauce but not too much on the base of your pizza. Then a little salt and parmesan. Now if you are using sausage as we are here I don't add a drizzle of olive oil but if you were just making a margarita then you'd add a little olive oil, then basil and mozzarella.
To make the sausage and fennel pizza, get the meat from one or two sausages (disregard the casing) and dot over the pizza. Finely slice half a fennel bulb and arrange on the pizza. Adding the frongs too. Place in the oven for about 15 minutes. Then add some torn mozzarella and place back into the oven. When the mozzarella has melted to your liking take it out. Leave on a wire rack for a couple of minutes until you cut into it. Then make sure you eat it whilst it's still hot. Damn I'm hungry now.